


When the Dust Settles

by Leviarty



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Domestic Fluff, Episode: s04e21 Makani 'Olu a Holo Malie (Fair Winds and Following Seas), Episode: s05e04 Ka No'eau (The Painter), Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Pancakes, but only sort of because these two are dumbs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-03
Updated: 2016-05-03
Packaged: 2018-06-06 04:09:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6737650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leviarty/pseuds/Leviarty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Or: Five Times they had Sex and One Time they Didn’t?</p>
            </blockquote>





	When the Dust Settles

_the first time_

It’s after he was taken by the Taliban, after Catherine disappeared into the wind. It was Danny who arranged the rescue, Danny who met him in Afghanistan, Danny who brought him home.

 Mentally, he was exhausted. Physically, he was hurt too, but no worse than he’d been before; cuts and scrapes mostly healed, and his arm still ached when he moved, but at least his eyes were swollen shut.

And yes, he was bruised all over, but Danny’s lips were soft against his skin.

And it was all great. The best, really.

 

In the morning, Steve awoke to an empty bed, and they never talked about what happened.

 

_the second time_

After Columbia, Steve got in the driver’s seat of the Camero and Danny didn’t even argue. He just looked lost, and Steve badly wished he could fix it, turn back time and make it all better.

“You want me to take you back to your place?” he asked. He didn’t want to, didn’t want to leave Danny alone anywhere. He knew what Danny was feeling, and that being left alone to his thoughts wouldn’t make anything better.

“I don’t know,” Danny said.

“You can stay with me,” Steve said.

When they got home, Steve helped him into the shower, helped him clean off the stink of sweat and blood and dirt, then kissed every inch of him.

 

_after a while, he starts to lose track_

After killing Wo Fat, after undercover missions gone wrong, after cases involving kids.

It starts to become almost a regular thing, something they both can anticipate happening after a rough day, even if neither of them talk about it. _Ever_.

Which is fine. They don’t need to talk about. Whatever they’re doing, it’s working out alright.

Except that it wasn’t working at all.

 

It was a bad day, from start to finish, and neither of them makes any attempt to stop what they both knew was happening next. They wrapped up the case and climbed into the car; he even let Danny drive, because after today, he deserved it.

“Want a beer?” Steve asked when they pulled up to the McGarrett house.

And really, he had every intention of grabbing a couple and sitting out on the lanai for a while, but they never quite made it to the kitchen.

 

Steve awoke to the sun shining through his window, all too bright. He didn’t like sleeping in this late, didn’t like the day to get a jump on him, but yesterday? Yesterday was a mess. He earned a few extra winks.

He rolled over to face the empty side of the bed.

If he was being honest with himself, he would’ve like if once, just once, he didn’t find it empty.

But he was never that honest with himself.

He got out of bed, pulled on the first pair of shorts he could find in the drawer, then padded downstairs.

The aroma of coffee hit his nose like a freight train.

“Danno?” he questioned, squinting at him from the doorway. Danny was in the kitchen, standing over the coffee maker and matching mugs.

“Morning. Coffee’s almost ready.”

A million questions ran through Steve’s head, but he hadn’t the first clue which to voice first.

The thought his mind latched on to was this: Danny was wearing his boat shoes. And his day-off shorts, and his tough mudder t-shirt. But Steve was certain he’d been wearing work clothes when they’d come home yesterday; he distinctly remembered ripping a few of the buttons. But here he was, in casual clothes that he’d produced from—where? His car? Steve didn’t think it likely, because Danny was never quite that prepared. Which meant that he had spare clothes stashed away somewhere in the McGarrett house.

Upon closer consideration, he really shouldn’t be so surprised.

But instead of saying any of that, he said: “You’re still here.”

“Keen detective skills you’ve got there.” Danny poured them each a cup of coffee, then sat down at the little table. When Steve didn’t budge, he pushed the other chair out with his foot. Steve, with next to no conscious effort, sat down and took his coffee, but didn’t sip.

He felt like he was two steps behind on a path he didn’t even know he’d started.

“Alright, babe, you can stop with the aneurysm face. I know talking about your feelings is foreign territory for you, but I swear, five minutes and I’ll let you go.”

“What?”

“How long have we been seeing this therapist? Going on two years, right? And she has failed, _spectacularly_ , to grasp onto any understanding of our working relationship. This,” he motioned between them. “Is a mess. The thing is… it didn’t used to be. Chin said something to me the other day… We have always bickered, from day one. But we’ve always worked well together, and we’ve always been friends. But lately it’s been different. It doesn’t work like it used to; our bickering has turned into arguing, and it has put cases in jeopardy. So Chin sits me down and asks me what that shitty therapist never considered: what changed?

“I didn’t tell him, of course, but I knew. And you know. We had sex. Excellent, fabulous, _mind blowing_ sex. But it screwed everything up. What we’re doing—it’s not working. It never did. Something has to change. Either, we stop this altogether, or…”

Whatever he was going to say next was lost on Steve; he couldn’t fathom what alternative Danno had in mind that would fix all this.

And Danny seemed to have lost whatever it was he was going to say. He shook his head and got up. He headed to the front door, keys in hand.

“Or what, Danno,” Steve’s mouth asked without so much as asking permission.

Danny stopped, but didn’t turn back. He let out a long sigh. “Last night, you said you loved me. And I get it, throes of passion, or whatever, it happens, you slip, say something you don’t mean. But it doesn’t happen with you. So. Either we stop this, once and for all.” Danny paused, maybe for just a moment, but it felt like forever. “Or we stop pretending its just sex.”

 

Steve lived through SEAL training, through endless hours of swimming and treading water and being held just beneath the surface. He learned how to hold his breath for minutes at a time, how to keep himself alive, how to save someone else. He knew what it felt like to have water rush over his head, powerless to it.

But he hadn’t felt a sense of drowning like this in a long time.

 

He didn’t know how long he sat there, at the table, but the still-full coffee cup in his hands had gone cold.

 

Steve wasn’t afraid of a lot. The Navy had trained most of it out of him. And for a long time, he hadn’t been close to anyone, never had to fear for losing them. Now he had Chin and Kono and Danny and Grace. He’d come close to losing them all, more than once. And since Doris, since   
Catherine, that fear warped into something else. Not that he’ll lose his best friends, but that they’ll walk away. And with Danny it was worse, like standing on a precipice, because he was always one-foot out the door, always wistful to be anywhere but Hawaii.

He always suspected this would happen—that Danny would wake up one morning and say ‘no more’.

He didn’t expect it would come with an ultimatum. He didn’t expect… whatever this was.

 

Like everything else that had happened today, he didn’t remember making the decision to get in his car, or drive to Danny’s, but nonetheless, there he was, fist raised to knock.

There was an unfamiliar churning in his stomach.

Danny seemed surprised to see him when he opened the door. “Steve?”

Danny was right. All of this had been a disaster, and they had two ways to maybe fix it. Go back to the way things were before, or…

“I don’t want to go back, Danny,” he said. “I like this, and I don’t want to go back to the way it was. So… I’m in if you are.”

Danny smiled after a moment of studying him. “Come on,” he said, nodding into the house. “Grace and I are making animal pancakes.”

 “Isn’t Grace a little old for animal pancakes?” Steve asked, following him into the kitchen.

Danny glared at him, for suggesting that his baby girl was growing up.

“No one is too old for animal pancakes, Uncle Steve,” Grace said. She was standing over the stove with several squeeze tubes which Steve could only assume were filled with pancake batter. “What animal do you want?”

“Umm. Surprise me?” Steve said. Strewn across the table were four incredibly detailed animals: a monkey, a bumblebee, a giraffe, and an octopus.

Danny leaned over and whispered something in her ear, to which she grinned and nodded. She finished what she was working on and added the fox to the growing pile, then got started on whatever Danny had suggested. Danny passed him an empty plate, and a few minutes later, Grace flipped a fresh pancake onto the plate, and Steve found himself looking at a perfect seal shaped pancake.

He laughed. “Where did you learn to do that?”

“Danno taught me,” she said.

“I’ve been making them since she was old enough to eat pancakes,” he explained. “It’s not so hard.”

“Yeah, you should try,” Grace suggested, holding out the bottle of batter.

“I don’t know…” Steve said, but was forced to give in when met with matching Williams glares. “Alright, but you should know I’m no artist.”

“Start with something simple,” Grace said. “Like an umbrella. Wait! I’ll be right back. Don’t start without me.” She took off running down the hall.

“You’re sure about this?” Danny asked.

“Yeah.”

“Steve…”

“Yes,” Steve said, more firmly. He’s never been more sure.

“Good,” he said. Danny put one hand on his cheek, and kissed him lightly.

Grace gasped.

Steve pulled back suddenly, but Danny wasn’t wearing any of the panic Steve was feeling.

“Whoops,” Danny said, and used his other hand to wipe off the smudge of batter he’d accidentally smeared on Steve’s face.

Grace hugged Danny and kissed his cheek, then turned around and did the same to Steve. Steve takes that to mean some kind of approval, and from Grace it meant the world. “Now, pancakes,” she said.


End file.
